Warhammer 40K: Meta Hotness – Balance Dataslate Winners!
Goatboy here with the latest 40K Balance Dataslate updates. Let’s look at some of the winners from a points & rules perspective.
Rules can be super good, but if you cost too much, it is just not nearly as great as it could be. This time around GW went heavy on point adjustments to their game’s poster child – the Space Marines. Almost all flavors got a point decrease which could really flip them from being meh to being yeah!
It is an interesting game design concept to look at balancing the army by decreasing their cost and zeroing out most of their upgrade costs. This is huge as a lot of the “survivability” in utilizing the Storm Shield got nerfed by AoC and it that gone this little upgrade that is now free for most units could be called a game changer. A lot of Space Marine things got super cheap and it is probably going to be the big push to get Marines into the 50% field of winning – and at the very least being played more by the better players.
Space Wolves Bring the Thunder
I won’t go over each unit, but the big things that stand out to me are a ton of vehicles got pushed making them viable. A few assault options I love got better, and characters all saw a point drop. Right now my favorite drops look towards Thunder Wolves and all the fun Space Wolf nonsense you can do. While they don’t have the best doctrine – the army is full of guys who love to have shields with furry bits on them. This just amps up the ability to survive damage. Plus, with your army throwing out some many attacks it just amps up your ability to win. Of the assault armies it feels like Space Wolves got the best of the updates as they had the most to gain from free wargear. Especially on their Terminators and other friendly units.
All Hail the Machine!
Iron Hands look to be a definite winner as the vehicles all got a big boost in point drops. I expect a few lists to pop out and you can see how the new boxed set will help start some people’s Iron Hands army builds. Will we see a Bro-viathan style list again (all Leviathans & Dreads)? Probably not but at the very least it does give players a cool-looking army that feels very 40K filled with Primarius guys, dreadnoughts, and hard-hitting characters.
Chaos Daemons Did Great
On the non-Marine side of things, Daemons got a nice bump with a lot of their troops going down and some of their other bigger monsters staying the same. The big two tough options – the super Thirster and Lord of Change got a point bump, but Flamers stayed the same. Yes, they got a nerf in the Dataslate, but they are still a 3-wound jump unit with a flat 3+ save to shooting that can always move and shoot you back with Strength 5 weapons. There will be some of these units. Just no more seeing 3 big options. So while it hurts the army to lose some of that shooting, they are far from being useless. I think this will end up letting the army be more playable as a very fast, hard-hitting unit, and it is just a see of big monsters.
Knights Stomping Back
Both Knights didn’t get a point increase which is great. The biggest issue for both armies is losing Freeblade for the good guys from a Campaign book and losing Abaddon for the Dog Walker army. I think the loss of AoC for Marines just makes all their weapons better and mixed without any kind of point change ensures we see more Knights on the tabletop. Oh, and the big Knights might have a place again too. Free reserves means these guys are going to strut out on the field and throw some damage down the line any game they could get killed thru one shooting phase.
Adeptus Custodes Look Golden
Finally, my other thought on good armies getting better is Custodes look to be interesting again. They didn’t gain any increases in points, still have access to some mean dreadnoughts, and now all their Core Infantry get objective secured. Mix this with a very forgiving Detachment, and you get an army just poised to be a pain in the butt. Behind Enemy Lines got updated with some lovely little changes, so adding in a few single terminators might be a key to winning games big with the golden Custodes.
Overall it is going to be a crazy meta in the next few months as events settle in, armies become good again, and people get ready to slap-chop their way to victory. It is going to be exciting times and just think – World Eaters are coming and a true Imperial Guard release is on the way too.
